


(I'll Be) Fine

by Ailerua



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, As katy perry once put it, Bart gets upset, Blood and Injury, Ed gets shot, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, because they'll never understand, but you just can't get into it, but you're not fine, when everyone asks if you're fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 19:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20069440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailerua/pseuds/Ailerua
Summary: What Bart had meant to say was he wasn’t fine. Fine was a vapid word. He was sick of losing everyone around him.The Team goes on a mission to capture Deathstroke when he fires a shot at Bart, which Eduardo takes. Forced to face his worst fears, Bart deals with the ramifications of loving people who are at risk of dying every single day- and the consequences of constantly insisting he'd be fine.





	(I'll Be) Fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrozenWaffle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWaffle/gifts).

“Kid!”

That was the last thing he heard before the exclaim was followed by an expert gunshot from Deathstroke. In a golden blur, Bart felt his body being shoved backwards as Eduardo blocked the bullet from entering his body, by using his own. Deathstroke shoved the gun back into its holster and jumped over the ledge, completing his escape. He had meant to shoot a distracted Kid Flash to slow him down and keep the speedster off his trail, but he could have never anticipated El Dorado to take the hit instead. Either way, Deathstroke knew when to continue and when to stop- this was clearly the latter.

The deafening shock only lasted a second before Bart refocused back into reality.

“What the Hell, Ed, I would have been fine! Why’d you jump in front of me?” Bart exclaimed, half-shocked and half-furious, catching Ed in his arms as he lost balance. “I have accelerated healing, you don’t!”

“I don’t know, guess it was just instinct.” Ed gasped, hand shakily making its way to his abdomen. He hovered over the general area of the wound and pressed down, letting out a pained groan as he did. Bart’s eyes widened and he quickly laid Ed down, ripping open his jacket to find a patch of blood quickly blossoming into a larger pool in Ed’s lower left side.

“Ah man,” Bart muttered. “This isn’t good.”

Ed coughed. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m gonna try and stop the bleeding. This won’t feel too crash.” Bart warned as he immediately began applying pressure on the wounded area. Ed yelled out in pain, the force of Bart’s palms on his side debilitating. Bart’s brows furrowed in consternation; taking the bullet out wouldn’t have helped. All he could do was apply the pressure needed to plug the flow of the blood somewhat.

Virgil flew over on his static platform, looking triumphant and entirely unaware of the commotion.

“Hey, it’s over! Deathstroke got away, but we got all the others. How’s- oh, crap.”

Upon seeing Bart pressing down on Ed’s side, Virgil jumped off his platform and knelt down next to Ed, whose face was scrunched up in immense pain from the pressure Bart was putting on his wound.

“Oh, dude, that’s not good.” Virgil commented, worry visible on his face.

“He’s losing blood, and fast.” Bart wiped some sweat away from his face with his shoulder, never breaking contact. “He needs medical attention immediately.”

_‘Static to Team, Ed’s down. Reconvene where we first landed. Bio-Ship, we need you here, girl.’_ Virgil instructed telepathically. A few moments later, Cassie and Jaime flew into view, Cassie hauling three victims tied with her rope behind her. Both their faces fell when they realized the extent of what was going on.

“What happened?” Cassie asked.

“He jumped in front of me is what happened.” Bart grit his teeth. “Even though he knew he’d be worse off than me.”

“Can Scarab do anything?” Virgil turned to Jaime, whose Scarab was already scanning the damage.

“No. Scarab’s good at hurting. Not as good as making things better.” Jaime replied. “You know it’s true.” He fired back at Scarab, presumably to a protest from the beetle.

“But you’re going to be fine, Ed.” Jaime insisted. Bart flinched at the word. “Scarab says it’s just a flesh wound.”

Bart looked over at Jaime hopefully, and was met with a grave look and a slight shake of his best friend’s head. He was stretching the truth; it wasn’t a mere flesh wound. But telling Ed otherwise and causing him to panic and/or hyperventilate wasn’t going to help.

For worse or the better, Ed couldn’t comprehend what he said because he was rapidly losing consciousness. His eyes fluttered shut, breathing labored.

“Dude, no, keep your eyes open.” Virgil slapped his cheeks slightly, but to no avail.

“We need to move him,” Bart said, unable to hear much of anything besides the pounding of his heart in his ears, not feeling much else but the fear and the slippery blood between his hands. “I-I can run, I’m the only one who’s fast enough. I just have to find the nearest hospital-”

“No, you can’t.” Jaime grabbed Bart by the shoulder gently, nodding towards Scarab on his back to indicate that the following information was coming from straight the beetle itself. “Trust me, I know you’re worried but you’ll just make the bleeding worse if you run at full speed. Keep blocking the wound for now and wait for the Bio-Ship to come. Keep applying pressure.”

Ed’s breathing was becoming shallower, and the color was draining from his face at the same rate as the blood was seeping through Bart’s gloves. Bio-Ship was taking a while; she was far from the area and was fending off stray assassins. Bart’s vision became hazy and he shook his head to clear it up. He himself was cold and clammy from fear. He’d seen this before, countless times in the future that didn’t exist anymore. Wounds and injuries were too commonplace to be fretted over. But here, he had time to fret over things like this. And whether that was a good or bad thing really depended on the situation. In this situation, it was definitely the latter.

“Shit,” Ed choked out, going in and out of consciousness. Bart maintained a steady pressure to the wound to prevent more blood from flowing out, but he wasn’t sure how helpful he was actually being. He’d watched people do this a lot in the future, but he was always removed from the scene before he could do anything. “It hurts a lot.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Bart apologized, genuinely upset that he couldn’t lessen the pain. The Bio-Ship was zooming over as fast as possible, but to Bart, it was so slow. If only she could come faster. If only he could run them both over to the hospital without hurting Ed.

_It’ll be fine._

*

Eduardo Dorado, Sr. rushed into the emergency room, disheveled and disoriented. As soon as he spotted the Team, he slowed down to catch his breath.

“I Zeta’d here as fast as I could.” he gasped. “My son, i-is he alright?”

Miss Martian approached him calmly. “Nothing has changed since I contacted you. He’s still in surgery, and we’re not allowed in the room. We just have to trust the doctor now.”

Ed’s father’s shoulders slumped as he let out a shallow sigh; a brilliant scientist, defeated at the thought that his son may not make it. Bart knew how heartbroken he felt- he felt the same exact thing when he heard news of his father, Don Allen, in the rebels’ shoddy makeshift hospital area in the post-apocalyptic future. News of his death followed not too far afterwards.

_‘No, stop thinking like that. He’ll be fine.’ _he chastised himself. But all Bart could see were the bloody gloves he donned in front of him, nestled against the chair in the hallway. While they were usually red, Ed’s blood darkened them even more. He had developed tunnel vision; the only thing he could think about was the exact moment Ed had teleported in front of him to take the bullet.

“Thank you,” Ed’s father addressed the Team, after gaining some composure. Bart hid his hands away from his view by folding them together. “All of you. I heard from Miss Martian that you all did your best to get him help as quickly as possible.”

“Especially Bart,” Jaime pointed out quickly. “If he didn’t act quickly and apply pressure, Ed could have bled out.”

Eduardo Dorado, Sr. nodded understandingly, turning towards the speedster and putting his hand on his shoulder. “Yes. You were very brave, Bart. That couldn’t have been an easy thing to do. Thank you. I am truly grateful, from the bottom of my heart.”

But Bart couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eyes. The overwhelming guilt of being the reason Ed was hurt in the first place prevented him from feeling like he deserved any recognition.

The doors to the surgical room opened, and the doctor came out in his teal scrubs, followed by his team. Everyone rose from their seats in anticipation.

“Doctor. How is he?” Miss Martian broke the silence, asking the inevitable.

“Well, the good news is the surgery went well and he’s stable.” The doctor said as he took off his surgical mask, and everyone let out a huge sigh of relief.

_‘Please no bad news, please no bad news.’ _Bart thought.

“The bad news,” The doctor continued. Bart bit his bottom lip. “Is that it might be a little while before he wakes up. He lost a lot of blood, and the rest of his recovery is up to him. Whether or not he’ll be fine is only something a bit of time can tell. But in the meantime, Miss Morse, Mr. Dorado, we can discuss this more in my office.”

Crestfallen, Bart stumbled backwards and fell into his chair. Just when he thought it was over. As the adults went with the doctor to discuss the logistics of the hospital stay, the team lingered behind in sullen silence.

_Fine. Just fine._

*

The days following Ed’s surgery were slow, much slower than anything Bart could ever complain about. He was mostly a constant in the private hospital room, as visitors filtered in and out. Ed’s father and the Team visited often, and thanks to their popularity on social media and the publicized nature of the fight, everyone was rooting for the speedy recovery of El Dorado. The hospital did its best to keep Ed away from the media’s prying eyes, but news outlets in cahoots with G. Gordon were already using this incident to chastise the Justice League for allowing such young heroes to risk their lives- as if Ed was nothing more than an example.

Jaime and Traci stayed with Bart and kept him company, knowing their presence could distract the speedster even for a little bit. Ed’s father could not leave Star Labs for long, but always made time in the evening to Zeta to the hospital and see his son, and to bring snacks for Bart. Even Tye and Asami visited their fellow ex-Runaway, and that was an awkward conversation for Bart to have to explain that Ed was currently bedridden because Ed jumped in front of Deathstroke’s bullet and took the hit for Bart. But all the support in the world couldn’t have speeded up Ed’s recovery fast enough.

The nights in the room with only the steady beeping of the heart monitor gave Bart enough time to mull about and reflect on what was truly bothering him. And what was truly bothering him was a conglomeration of many events put together.

_“Don’t make that face,”_ Joan had said in the days leading up to her passing. _“You know you can get wrinkles from being upset, and you don’t want wrinkles like me. You’ll ruin those ridiculously good genetics of yours.”_

_“You’re beautiful, wrinkles or no wrinkles.”_ Bart had let out a sad laugh, holding onto Joan’s withering hands like letting go wasn’t an option. _“I’ll miss you a lot, Joan. We all will.”_

_“That’s just how it is. But you will be just fine, you and Jay and the rest of the world. You always have, right?” _Joan had insisted.

_“Yeah. We’ll be fine.”_

What Bart had meant to say was he wasn’t fine. Fine was a vapid word. He was sick of losing everyone around him. The few years on the Team gave him a sense of permanency, even helped him get over Wally’s death slowly. Being surrounded by constant death was a thing of the past- or the future, per se. But he was finally able to have a somewhat normal life in this timeline, under the gentle care of the Garricks. He had friends who weren’t carted off to do manual labor in another area every other day. He went to school and learned things beyond Reach propaganda, without having to sneak into locked up libraries to read up on real history. He could eat chicken whizzies whenever he wanted, and he could go over to Jaime’s house without having to watch out for any Reach guards. He even met Ed, a boy he grew to like, a romantic feeling he never had the luxury to enjoy. Dating someone so wonderful would have never been an option in the Reach future. And Bart discovered that when he loved someone, he loved them with his entirety.

In reality, Bart was never one to be scared about things that would happen to him directly. He had accelerated healing, accelerated speed- he lived his whole life accelerated, and not much could really hurt him permanently. He could always get back up.

But when his loved ones were hurt, oh God. All the super speed in the world couldn’t change the fact that none of his teammates were invulnerable. Going out in the field always carried risks, even for superpowered people like them. And in a way, he could see why Mrs. Sandsmark, Jay, and Eduardo Dorado, Sr. were initially so adamantly against the young heroes risking their lives, because at any given moment, they were exposed to a certain degree of danger. For Bart, it was easy to say he’d be fine and to mean it. But for anyone else, it was only an empty reassurance to ease any worries felt by those around them.

It escaped Bart how easily good things could be ripped away until Joan passed, and he lost his maternal figure for the second time in his life. The worst part was that he was able to see both coming. And now Eduardo was on the same bed as Joan once was, unconscious, unaware of when he would be able to wake up. His sleeping face was too peaceful, too unsettling- not knowing what was to come.

_‘Please, you took everyone else away. Don’t take him away from me, too.’_ Bart thought to himself, squeezing his eyes shut; or perhaps he was praying to any higher figure out there who was willing to listen.

But what he got in return was only the steady beeping of the monitor.

As he drifted off to a restless sleep, he realized he couldn’t lie about being fine anymore. He wasn’t fine.

*

It was 4:11 AM when Eduardo woke up for the first time since the surgery. The first thing he saw was the television hanging high up on the wall across from him, the dim lights, and then the pristine white walls surrounding him. He then drifted towards the soft grip in his hand, and the all-too-familiar soft snoring of Bart at his bedside, slumped over his legs.

“Someone doesn’t look too whelmed.” Ed’s remarked aloud, noticing Bart’s dark circles.

Bart’s eyes snapped open immediately, despite the fatigue overtaking his body. Ed’s own eyes were open- tired, unfocused, and groggy, but open nonetheless. He was awake.

“You’re up!” Bart couldn’t help himself- he knew hugging should have been out of the question, but in that moment, he needed to hug Ed like his life depended on it. He squeezed Ed and allowed himself to let out a choked gasp that he’d been holding in.

“Ah, that’s a little painful,” Ed winced, voice still raspy from days of disuse. Bart let go of his grip and settled down back on the chair and held Ed’s hand in between both of his own, shaking ones- just as he held Joan’s.

“Sorry, sorry.” Bart smiled, eyes still a little raw from a combination of on-and-off tears and staying up so late nearly every day. Ed groaned, rubbing his eyes. He tried to stretch, but felt a stabbing pain in his side, doubling over.

“Don’t strain yourself so quickly,” Bart instructed.

“Right, right. My bad.” Ed chuckled, strained. “How long was I out?”

“Not long. Couple of days. Maybe more. A couple of days plus four more. Or maybe five.”

“So…a week.”

“Yeah.”

Ed lifted his hospital blanket and examined the bandages on his side. Bart averted his gaze, not wanting to see the damage more than he already had.

“You remember what happened?” Bart asked carefully.

“Sure I do. I teleported in front of you, took the shot.” Ed shrugged. Bart winced at the memory.

“But it’s not bad for a shot from Deathstroke.” Ed sighed. “I guess I can finally cross off ‘getting shot by Deathstroke and surviving’ off my bucket list.”

Every time he thought of Deathstroke shooting Ed, the pain in Bart’s chest worsened. But he forced a smile. “Weird flex. Didn’t know that was a bucket list item.”

“Mostly kidding. That, and punching Lex Luthor in the face one day. Where’s everyone else?”

“It’s like, 4 in the morning, they’re probably asleep.”

“Oh man, that’s late. Or should I say, early? You should go home and get some sleep, too.”

“I’m fine.” Bart felt the words come out instinctively. And he knew he wasn’t. “But…”

“Hm?”

“Y’know, maybe they were right,” Bart blurted. He couldn’t stop the inevitable, and the words flowed out of him before he could stop himself.

Ed tilted his head, confused. “What?”

“Maybe the adults were right. Maybe you were right, when you said you weren’t about the hero life. Maybe this isn’t for you.”

Ed frowned.

“That’s…not the brightest message to wake up to.”

“It’s just, seeing you hurt and not being able to do anything was seriously so moded. And I don’t wanna see you like that anymore.”

“Well, how do you think I feel every time I see you take a hit?” Ed countered. “No one wants to see anyone on the Team hurt, but just like you said before, it’s part of the gig. Besides, this is my decision to make.”

“But I’ll be fine. I have-”

“-accelerated healing, I know.”

“Yeah. And every time I say, ‘I’ll be fine’, it’s a guarantee. But for you, or Jaime, or Cass, or Virgil, or anyone else, it isn’t.”

“A guarantee? You’re not an exception, Bart.” Ed tried sitting up straight but ended up into a coughing fit and had to lie back down with Bart’s help. “You’re not invulnerable, either.”

This wasn’t the way Bart wanted it to go. He didn’t want to burden Ed with a dumb argument over his worries as soon as he woke up, but here he was, doing exactly that.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“You can’t just drop a bomb like this and expect me to forget about it. What’s wrong?”

“It’s fine.” Bart shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

“You always say you’re fine when you’re not. So, what’s really bothering you?” Ed’s voice softened, knowing Bart had something on his mind. An argument wasn’t going to take them anywhere.

Bart inhaled sharply. No better time than now to explain why he was so affected by all this.

“Look, in the future, I lost both of my parents and I lost most of my friends. I lost Joan recently, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. I’ve lost so many people I care about that I can’t keep track of it all. I thought I was used to it, but I’m not. And I don’t think I’ll ever be. I don’t care if I’m hurt, but I can’t lose you, too.”

There was a deafening silence in the room as Ed processed Bart’s words. He looked into Bart’s worried, tired eyes, realizing this went beyond what he initially thought the issue to be. Bart turned away.

“Hey, look at me.” Ed demanded quietly. Bart shook his head in defiance, so Ed lifted his free hand and placed it against Bart’s chin to turn him, just as he saw his dad do to his mother back when she was still alive. “First of all, don’t say that. I care if you’re hurt, we all do. Second of all, I’m not going anywhere. You know that.”

“But I don’t.” Bart insisted. “None of us really know anything, if you think about it. For all we know, we could both die tomorrow protecting the world. And all that’d be left would be…everyone living with the fact that we’d be gone.”

“That’s what it means to be a hero, no? Going down with a fight, putting the bad guys in their place. Inspiring people. Giving them another day of safety. If not us, then who, right?” Ed smiled reassuringly. “Come here.”

Bart leaned in, silent; and Ed kissed him, his chapped lips brushing against Bart’s own.

“I get that you’re worried. I know you’ve been through a lot. But we all know what we’re getting into, and I’m no exception. There’s no point in living in the past, and there’s a greater good that we both want for everyone. And besides, it’s all a learning experience. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“According to your dad, it’s ‘whom’, by the way.” Bart brought up, breaking the kiss for a second. Ed rolled his eyes.

“Whatever.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Only you could give me a headache as soon as I wake up from a gunshot wound.” Ed muttered against Bart’s lip, putting their foreheads together.

“Can you at least promise that you won’t jump in front of any more bullets for me? It’s a romantic gesture in theory, not so much when you’re bleeding on the ground.” Bart pleaded. Ed laughed.

“Yeah. I didn’t like it too much, either.” he agreed. “But like you always say, I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

It would take a while for Bart to believe those words, they both knew that. After everything Bart had been through at a young age, it would be unrealistic to believe he was completely okay at any given moment. But what mattered was the present and what mattered was the effort. Bart didn’t want to waste his time being worried anymore, being concerned about a future that he was unsure of. There was always uncertainty, but what was certain was that Eduardo was in front of him, and he was breathing, and he was okay.

And even though it was a false sense of security, Bart felt as though they’d be fine, in the truest sense of the word eventually. 

**Author's Note:**

> FrozenWaffle and I decided to do a fic exchange! She wanted hurt Ed and A N G S T and i hope I was able to deliver :^) (but i am a fluffy person and ofc I had to wrap it up in a somewhat fluffy ending)
> 
> Bart is a lot more complicated than most shows do him justice for- and not that it's bad or anything, but I could probably write an entire series about YJ's Bart Allen and still run out of time to explore his character in its entirety. Bart has explicitly said in the comics that he doesn't care if he himself gets hurt, but he'd be scared if his friends did, and I wanted to explore that; he's one of those people who says "I'll be fine" even though he doesn't really mean it. 
> 
> (Also the entire time I was writing this I was thinking of that one video of Katy Perry where she goes, "When everyone asks if you're fine but you're not fine but you just can't get into it because they'll never understand" and i wanted to make that the summary but that'd be terrible so into the tags it went)
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070193/chapters/47533033?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_242130754 Here's her fic for me! Check it outtie


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